Authors

Discussion

In this presentation, I explore the notion of “being green” as a synonym for “being sustainable” across three languages: English, Russian, and Brazilian Portuguese. I begin by examining how the connection between green and sustainabile is established in English language, where the metaphor has a strong cultural and linguistic foundation. I then demonstrate how this expression has been translated and adapted into Russian and Brazilian Portuguese. In these cases, the link to the original metaphor is weaker or differently interpreted, which results in alternative understandings of what it means to be green and sustainable. Based on the examples drawn from podcasts produced in the United Kingdom, Brazil, and Russia, I hypothesise that in English, green is no longer used solely to refer to natural or environmentally favourable settings, but has evolved into a semantic marker of cleanliness, safety, and friendliness. In contrast, this semantic shift has not yet fully occurred in Russian, where зелёный (zelyonyi) retains a primarily colour-based meaning with different symbolism. Similarly, while verde in Brazilian Portuguese does carry environmental connotations, it is often more closely associated with nature and aesthetics than with technological or systemic sustainability. Based on the premise that “it is in the lexicon that the encounter between science and society is most acutely played out”(Bonnet et al., 2019: 10), this study investigates how specific lexical choices mediate the relationship between scientific discourse and public understanding.